It seems we are staring at the prospects of losing our economic superiority in the world and has hit a panic button. Maintaining military superiority also depends on maintaining economic superiority. Unfortunately, our both political parties lack the leaders who can clearly envision the future and are on self-destructive course. It is interesting article to read how our main competitor, China, is preparing for the future. (f.Sheikh)
“ China’s peak is truly spectacular — a marvel of state capacity and resource mobilization never seen before on this planet. In just a few years, China built more high-speed rail than all other countries in the world combined. Its auto manufacturers are leapfrogging the developed world, seizing leadership in the EV industry of the future. China has produced so many solar panels and batteries that it has driven down the cost to be competitive with fossil fuels — a huge blow against climate change, despite all of China’s massive coal emissions, and a victory for global energy abundance. China’s cities are marvels of scale — forests of towering skyscrapers lit up with LEDs, cavernous malls filled with amazing restaurants and shops selling every possible modern convenience for cheap, vast highways and huge train stations. Even China’s policy mistakes and authoritarian overreaches inspire awe and dread — Zero Covid failed in the end, but it demonstrated an ability to control society down to the granular level that the Soviets would have envied.”
“Modern China is certainly a very innovative country. Chinese scientists now publish the majority of high-impact papers in fields like chemistry, physics, computer science, materials science, and engineering:”
“China’s innovation outside of the laboratory is just as impressive. A vast number of incremental improvements and process innovations allow many Chinese businesses to improve product quality and decrease manufacturing cost much more effectively than their foreign rivals. Without Chinese innovation, most of the manufactured goods we consume would be either lower-quality, more expensive, or both. In fact, Chinese companies are responsible for most of the nation’s research spending. As a result, Chinese companies dominate the global market for a number of high-tech products:”
As a result of our rulers’ policy choices, Europe is now so weak that it presents an unguarded feast for the great powers carving up the world between them. The emperor on the Washington throne now seeks to detach Greenland from Denmark and add it with Canada to his vast American domain. When Trump can say of Canada that soon “the artificial line of separation drawn many years ago will finally disappear”, the dynamics are not so different from Putin harking back to Kyivan Rus and the Rurikids to justify his war of imperial expansion. Empires ebb and flow, as they always have: the weaker states between them, whether Ukraine or Europe as a whole, must either accept having their fates determined by great imperialists, or prepare to fight for their own survival.
The talk, then, of European rearmament as a means to save Ukraine from American retreat and Russian dismemberment is best understood as a form of noble lie to prepare European voters to stand alone. When Emmanuel Macron called Nato “brain dead” five years ago, suggesting America’s waning commitment, he was mocked by the very same Atlanticist voices which now, too late, demand a strong and sovereign Europe. These are the very same voices that three years ago, when Russia first invaded, were proclaiming that “Nato is back”, with the relief of born vassals suddenly rescued from the fearful responsibilities of freedom. Had Macron been listened to back in 2020, perhaps matters would be different now; perhaps, indeed, the Ukraine war would never have begun. But Europe’s empty commitments are simply too late: without American support, Ukraine has lost the war. And a Europe capable, with great exertion, of patrolling Ukraine’s eastern frontiers in a decade’s time is simply of no use in determining the outcome of the peace talks taking place now. Once again, it is those most culpable for present failure spurring us to future action: yet whether or not it is also too late for Europe remains an undetermined question. The assumption belatedly dawning on European policymakers is that Nato’s Article 5 is already dead, and with it, the Atlantic Alliance. If Nato still exists in a decade, it will do so only in the sense that Charlemagne was a Roman emperor. The titles may remain the same, perhaps the great ritual gatherings will continue, but the hard facts of power will have changed utterly, and the frontiers to defend will have shrunk.
With Nato moribund, it is difficult to think of a Western state, apart from Canada, worse prepared or politically situated for Trump 2.0 than Britain.
Iassume that the reader is familiar with the idea of extra-sensory perception … telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition and psycho-kinesis. These disturbing phenomena seem to deny all our usual scientific ideas … Unfortunately the statistical evidence, at least for telepathy, is overwhelming … Once one has accepted them it does not seem a very big step to believe in ghosts and bogies.’
These words weren’t published in the pages of an obscure occult journal or declared at a secret parapsychology conference. They weren’t written by a Victorian spiritualist or a séance attendee. In fact, their author is Alan Turing, the father of computer science, and they appear in his seminal paper ‘Computing Machinery and Intelligence’ (1950), which describes the ‘imitation game’ (more commonly known as the ‘Turing test’) designed to establish whether a machine’s intelligence could be distinguished from that of a human.
The paper starts by setting up the now-famous thought experiment: a human, a machine, and an observer who asks questions. If the observer cannot work out which one is which based on their responses, the machine has passed the test: its intelligence is indistinguishable from that of a human mind. The vast majority of the paper addresses various objections against the experiment from mathematics, philosophy of mind, or from those sceptical about the power of computers.
But, about two-thirds of the way through the paper, Turing addresses an unexpected worry that might disrupt the imitation game: telepathy. If the human and the observer could communicate telepathically (which the machine supposedly could not do), then the test would fail. ‘This argument is to my mind quite a strong one,’ says Turing. In the end, he suggests that, for the test to work properly, the experiment must take place in a ‘telepathy-proof room’.
If you go to San Francisco, this is what you’ll see:
The city is now filled with Waymo robotaxis. And Waymo is not the only player in town. The looming giant is Tesla and its self-driving cars. These companies are building cars that drive better than most humans.
What will happen in the coming years? The world will be upended. This is the vision of what’s likely to happen.
In the beginning, you’ll take self-driving cars because they’re new and fun: “Look, it’s moving the wheel alone!” It will help that you’ll look at the stats and know that they have fewer accidents than human drivers.
Then, you’ll notice that self-driving cars are more convenient. You don’t need to talk with a human, manage their expectations, fear their driving skills, suffer their eating or smoking… You will start changing your habits, and instead of ordering an Uber or hailing a cab, you’ll default to Waymo or Tesla’s robotaxi.
Then, you’ll notice that they tend to be cheaper! At first, they will be just a bit cheaper. Then, prices will drop more every year. You’ll forget about human cabs.
Then, you’ll take the robotaxi for more and more things—for example to pick up the kids at school during work hours, to go have dinner (in case of drinking), to go downtown (parking is hard), and things like that: It’s so convenient, you won’t even notice.
Trips to the city where in the past you were on the fence between using your car or a cab will become no-brainers: You won’t have to find or pay for a parking spot with a robotaxi!
Then, you’ll start using robotaxis for new purposes, like dropping off and picking up your 12 year old child from extracurriculars—something you’d never imagine doing with a human driver…
One day, you’ll hear from a friend who jettisoned her car. “How do you commute to work?” “With robotaxis! I ran the math and it’s actually cheaper!”
Commutes will be the key milestone: They represent a huge number of miles because they happen twice a day, every week day, 40-50 weeks per year. Replacing them will accelerate the takeover of robotaxis. How will that happen?
In the US today, thecostpermile of owning a car is ~$0.65 to $0.70. But that’s just an average. People who live and work in a big city might not use their cars frequently or for long distances, making them much more expensive per mile. They will be the first to replace their daily commute with robotaxis: They will prefer working or watching YouTube during their commute than paying attention to the road. The more people drop their cars, the more robotaxis will be on the streets, and the cheaper they’ll become. Meanwhile, the fewer miles each person travels with their car, the more expensive the car will be per mile.1 As prices per mile of traditional cars increase and those of robotaxis decrease, more and more people will switch their commutes to robotaxis, adding billions of miles per year to robotaxis.
And robotaxis will be more convenient than owned cars too: No upfront payment, no need for parking at home, no need to look for parking at your destination, no need to risk death when you drink, no need to drive your loved ones everywhere…
The car will be relegated to ad hoc situations: Things like long trips, emergencies, big families… The more that’s the case, the more it will be treated like a luxury. Eventually, people will sell their cars or not bother to buy a new one when they break down.
The uptake of self-driving cars might eventually be accelerated through regulation, because these cars are already safer than humans, and will be even more so in the future.
At some point, the cost per mile will be close to that of mass transit options, but comfort will be much higher:
You don’t need to share the space with others, which is more hygienic and safer
You can go from any point to any point, rather than going to stations
You don’t have to wait for buses or trains to come pick you up on a timetable
This means robotaxis will also replace a big chunk of mass transit.
And as costs go down and convenience goes up, people will use more cars than before, in new situations that previously didn’t require a car.
This process will be faster in expensive and high-commute cities like the US’s West Coast or world capitals, and slower in places where driver costs are low and roads harder to navigate, like Vietnam or Africa.2
And this is a massive market. If every person uses a car on average a couple of times a day, that’s 16 billion potential car rides per day, or nearly 6 trillion rides per year. At $1 per ride, that’s nearly $6 trillion! And that’s just passengers. Add the transport of goods, and the potential market goes to the moon—here I’m paying attention to self-driving cars, but trucks will go through the same process.
You can limit this to fewer rides per person, fewer potential customers, and lower prices, it will still be a staggering market.
